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Climate Change Solutions Can’t Wait for US Leadership

Published April 5, 2017

By Desmond Brown

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Wednesday April 5, 2017, (IPS) – From tourism-dependent nations like Barbados to those rich with natural resources like Guyana, climate change poses one of the biggest challenges for the countries of the Caribbean.

Nearly all of these countries are vulnerable to natural events like hurricanes.

Not surprisingly, the climate change threat facing the countries of the Caribbean has not gone unnoticed by the region’s premier financial institution, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

“We are giving high priority to redressing the fallout from climate change,” the bank’s president Dr. Warren Smith told journalists at a press conference here recently.

“This is an inescapable reality, and we have made it our business to put in place the financial resources necessary to redress the effects of sea-level rise and more dangerous hurricanes.”

CDB has also tapped new funding for renewable energy and for energy efficiency.

For the first time, the bank has accessed a US$33 million credit facility from Agence Française de Développement (AFD) to support sustainable infrastructure projects in select Caribbean countries and a 3 million euro grant to finance feasibility studies for projects eligible for financing under the credit facility.

“At least 50 percent of those funds will be used for climate adaptation and mitigation projects,” Smith explained.

“We persuaded the Government of Canada to provide financing for a CAD$5 million Canadian Support to the Energy Sector in the Caribbean Fund, which will be administered by the CDB. This money will help to build capacity in the energy sector over the period 2016 to 2019.”

In February, CBD also became an accredited partner institution of the Adaptation Fund, and in October 2016, the bank achieved the distinction of accreditation to the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

“Why is this such a big deal? The Caribbean is facing a climate crisis, which we need to tackle now – with urgency,” Smith said.

“The Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund have opened new gateways to much-needed grant and or low-cost financing to address climate change vulnerabilities in all of our borrowing member countries (BMCs).”

The financing options outlined by the CDB president would no doubt be welcome news to Caribbean countries in the wake of United States President Donald Trump’s recently proposed budget cuts for climate change funding.

The proposed 2018 federal budget would end programmes to lower domestic greenhouse gas emissions, slash diplomatic efforts to slow climate change and cut scientific missions to study the climate.

The budget would cut the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funding by 31 percent including ending Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan – the Obama administration’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

At the U.S. State Department, the budget proposal eliminates the Global Climate Change Initiative and fulfills the president’s pledge to cease payments to the United Nations’ climate change programmes by eliminating U.S. funding related to the Green Climate Fund and its two precursor Climate Investment Funds.

The Green Climate Fund is the U.N. effort to help countries adapt to climate change or develop low-emission energy technologies, and the Global Climate Change Initiative is a kind of umbrella programme that paid for dozens of assistance programmess to other countries working on things such as clean energy.

The proposal would also cut big chunks out of climate-related programmes of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The USAID is the American agency through which the countries of the Caribbean get a lot of their funding for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

“We would be foolish to have taken a lead role in getting the world to move on climate, to put innovation at its core and then walk away from that agenda,” Dr Ernest Moniz said on CNN. “Some of the statements being made about the science, I might say by non-scientists, are really disturbing because the evidence is clearly there for taking prudent steps.

“I would not argue with the issue that different people in office may decide to take different pathways, different rates of change etc., but not the fundamental science,” added Moniz, who was instrumental in negotiating the Paris Climate Agreement.

Throughout his election campaign, Trump consistently threatened to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate deal.

Moniz, a nuclear physicist and former Secretary of Energy serving under President Obama, from May 2013 to January 2017, said he would wait and see how this develops, but said of the threat to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement, “obviously, that would be a very bad idea” noting that every country in the world is now committed to a low-carbon future.

“There’s no going back. One of my friends in the industry would say ‘you can’t keep the waves off the beach’. We are going to a low carbon future.”

Since being sworn in as president in January, Trump’s administration has been sending somewhat mixed signals about climate change. While Trump himself has described climate change as a hoax, he also said he had an open mind toward efforts to control it.

Caribbean countries, meanwhile, are watching with keen interest the developments in the United States.

Executive Director of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) Milton Haughton said fisheries is one of the industries being impacted by climate change.

“Climate change, sea level rise, ocean acidification and disaster risk management are major challenges facing the fisheries sector and the wider economies of our countries,” Haughton said ahead of a two-day meeting in Kingston to discuss measures for adaptation to climate change and disaster risk management in fisheries as well as the status of and recent trends in fisheries and aquaculture in the region.

“These issues continue to be high priorities for policy-makers and stakeholders because we need to improve capacity, information base and policy, and institutional arrangements to respond to these threats and protect our future.

“At this meeting, we will be discussing the USA-sponsored initiative to provide risk insurance for fishers, among other initiatives to improve and protect the fisheries sector and ensure food security,” Haughton added.

Education, Health, News

Smoking Ganja Increases Risk Of Stroke And Heart Attack, New Study Warns

Published April 5, 2017

WASHINGTON DC, USA, Wednesday April 5, 2017 – New research has revealed that cannabis is harmful to cardiovascular health and increases the chance of early death irrespective of related factors such as smoking tobacco.

Data taken from the records of more than 20 million people at over 1,000 US hospitals found that those who used the herb had a 26 percent greater chance of suffering a stroke than those who did not, as well as a 10 percent higher chance of having a heart attack.

The findings indicate that there is something intrinsic about cannabis that can damage the proper functioning of the human heart.

This conclusion remained unchanged after taking into account unhealthy factors known to affect many cannabis smokers, such as poor diet, obesity, alcohol overindulgence and tobacco smoking.

According to Dr Aditi Kalla, Cardiology Fellow at the Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia and the study’s lead author: “Even when we corrected for known risk factors, we still found a higher rate of both stroke and heart failure in these patients, so that leads us to believe that there is something else going on besides just obesity or diet-related cardiovascular side effects.

“It’s important for physicians to know these effects so we can better educate patients.”

The researchers analysed the records of young and middle-aged patients aged between 18 and 55 who were discharged from 1,000 hospitals in 2009 and 2010 at a time when marijuana use was still illegal in most states.

The study identified 316,000 patients, or 1.5 percent, where marijuana use was diagnosed in the notes.

Their cardiovascular disease rates were compared to those who did not use cannabis, and the difference was revealed.

The research, which was published last week at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Washington DC, built on previous research in cell cultures that has shown that heart muscle cells have cannabis receptors relevant to contractility, or squeezing ability, suggesting that those receptors might be one mechanism through which marijuana use could affect the cardiovascular system.

Health, International news, News, Sci/Tech

Scientists Make Breakthrough That Turns Seawater Into Drinking Water

Published April 5, 2017

MANCHESTER, England, Wednesday April 5, 2017 – The water surrounding the Caribbean already provides food and enjoyment for people living in the region and elsewhere. But now it could also be a source for unimaginable quantities of clean drinking water.

A UK-based team of scientists has created a graphene-based sieve capable of removing salt from seawater, a development that could aid the millions of people grappling with water shortages.

It has previously been difficult to manufacture graphene-based barriers on an industrial scale, but scientists from the University of Manchester, led by Dr Rahul Nair, solved some of the challenges by using a chemical derivative called graphene oxide. Its unusual properties, such as extraordinary tensile strength and electrical conductivity, have earmarked it as one of the most promising materials for future applications.

It has reportedly been difficult to produce large quantities of single-layer graphene using existing methods, and current production methods are costly, however.

Writing in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, Dr Nair nevertheless explained that graphene oxide can be produced by oxidation in the laboratory.

“As an ink or solution, we can compose it on a substrate or porous material. Then we can use it as a membrane,” he told BBC News.

“In terms of scalability and the cost of the material, graphene oxide has a potential advantage over single-layered graphene.”

Graphene oxide membranes have already proved their worth in sieving out small nanoparticles, organic molecules and even large salts. But until now, they couldn’t be used to filter out common salts, which require even smaller sieves.

Previous work had shown that graphene oxide membranes became slightly swollen when immersed in water, allowing smaller salts to flow through the pores along with water molecules.

Now, Dr Nair and colleagues demonstrated that placing walls made of epoxy resin on either side of the graphene oxide membrane was sufficient to stop the expansion.

Restricting the swelling in this way also allowed the scientists to tune the properties of the membrane, letting through less or more common salt, according to the BBC report.

When common salts are dissolved in water, they always form a “shell” of water molecules around the salt molecules.

This allows the tiny capillaries of the graphene-oxide membranes to block the salt from flowing through along with the water.

“Water molecules can go through individually, but sodium chloride cannot. It always needs the help of the water molecules. The size of the shell of water around the salt is larger than the channel size, so it cannot go through,” Dr Nair said.

By contrast, water molecules flow exceptionally fast through the membrane barrier, which makes it ideal for use in desalination.

“When the capillary size is around one nanometre, which is very close to the size of the water molecule, those molecules form a nice interconnected arrangement like a train,” Dr Nair explained.

“That makes the movement of water faster: if you push harder on one side, the molecules all move on the other side because of the hydrogen bonds between them. You can only get that situation if the channel size is very small.

“This is our first demonstration that we can control the spacing [of pores in the membrane] and that we can do desalination, which was not possible before. The next step is to compare this with the state-of-the-art material available on the market,” Dr Nair said.

Access to clean water is a major issue for many people across the Caribbean and around the world, and the UN expects that as climate change continues to reduce supply, 14 percent of the global population will experience water scarcity by 2025.

International news, News

Cruise Ship Cancels Tours in St Vincent After Slaughter of Killer Whales in Full View of Visitors

Published April 5, 2017

KINGSTOWN, St Vincent, Thursday April 5 2017 – On the heels of horrified tourists witnessing the killing of two orcas in Vincentian waters, a cruise ship has taken strong action in protest of the age old tradition.

TUI Discovery stopped short of pulling out of the destination, but has cancelled all its whale and dolphin watching tours, iWitness News has reported.

In a grim account, crew member on one of the two Fantasea tours on a whale and dolphin excursion, Ken Issacs, told the online news site that the delight of the rare sighting of a pod of four orcas, also known as killer whales, turned into a bloody tragedy as whalers slaughtered two of the huge sea creatures just off the Leeward coast.

He said the whaling boat, a pirogue with a modified shotgun with a harpoon mounted on the bow, carried three fishermen.

As he realized that the men were taking aim at an orca, he shouted to them to leave it alone, but was immediately dismissed.

A persistent Issacs then instructed the captain of the boat to go over to where the large killer whale was, but as they turned away the fishermen shot the first orca.

Issacs recounted hearing a loud explosion as the spear hit the killer whale.

He said guests were visibly shaken and many were crying, even as they returned to shore in Kingstown.

Issacs, who was angered by the incident, lamented that while whaling remains a legal practice in St Vincent, there was nothing traditional about people in speedboats using spear guns to kill whales.

He urged the government to ban whaling and instead develop a commercial market for whale watching.

Business, International news, News, Travel

LIAT Workers Getting Paid But No Promise Salaries Won’t Be Late Again

Published April 5, 2017

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Wednesday April 5, 2017 – Industrial action by employees of regional airlines LIAT seems to have been averted – for now.

Chairman of the shareholder governments, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines, yesterday evening announced that the latest sore point – the issue of late pay – has been resolved, if only for the time being.

The shareholder governments summoned an urgent meeting yesterday after tensions flared over the weekend after salaries were late. But Gonsalves emerged from the meeting with staff, management, the unions and shareholders at the Hilton Barbados Resort to announce that given the tone of the of the meeting, he would “be very surprised if any form of industrial action was pursued by various unions representing the staff.

“I think that instructions have gone to the bank for the payments, so depends on which bank you are in, some persons would get paid tomorrow [Wednesday] or the next day,” he told the media.

However, trouble could still be lurking, with the Vincentian leader suggesting that there was no guarantee that the airline would not be late with salaries again soon.

“The management is not saying that they would be in a position on each occasion over the next three months to pay precisely on time; there may be a couple of days deferral,” Gonsalves said.

Gonsalves said the issue of salaries was an important one, but there were “several practical questions” that needed to be addressed, “which are of concern to the staff and the travelling public by extension, that we hope immediately to be addressed over the medium term”.

The prime minister also revealed that plans had been drafted for the establishment of a technical committee to formulate a medium term development plan for the struggling airline.

‘What we decided on the way forward is that I would liaise with the president of the Caribbean Development Bank [CDB], who would name someone to draw up terms of reference for a technical committee to study a series of issue affecting operations of LIAT. This would be fed into a task force appointed by the shareholders and that task force would hold consultations with all of the relevant stakeholders . . . . Hopefully we can put together these committees in the week after Easter Monday and there is an outside time of three months for all of this technical and consultative work to be done and the report to be presented to the shareholders,” the Vincentian leader said.

In the meantime, Gonsalves assured that the LIAT management would not be resting on their laurels while the consultative work was being completed, as they have a number of issues pertaining to flight operations and the company’s day-to-day operations to address.

In a press release issued on Sunday LIALPA, possible the most militant of the unions, had called on the shareholder governments to dismiss the airline’s management.

Gonsalves did not address this matter in any detail, limiting his comments to an acknowledgement that those concerns were raised “in robust language”.

“The employees raised a number of issues relating to decisions, which, if the employees are correct about those matters, they would require immediate corrective action,” he said.